He’s just so damned…earnest.

But Bruiser actually needs to wear sweaters and stuff, because his fur is as short as the rest of him, so he’s always shivering. So it’s off to Petco for something, and of course it’s all cutesy, and then the holidays come… and I snicker semi-evilly, and we end up with something like this:

Kassie’s pretty stoic about it, but Sammy just wants it gone. Now, if given a preference:

But Bruiser actually loves it. And I’d heard that from other small dog people and shook my head at them. If I pull out some tee shirt he knows is his he can’t wait to ram his head in and lifts his paws for the armholes. In fact, he was NOT happy that the other dogs got into his act and made off with the goods…

Luckily he’s cute and Santa forgave him anyway. Hope everyone’s Holidays were merry!

The dozens of boxes of leftover inventory were hauled out of storage, organized, thousands of items individually priced and set up for a massive garage sale (actually held in our front parlors) that spanned 2 weekends. Friends were enlisted/enslaved, Charlie’s patience sorely tested (but rewarded- with some of the proceeds I bought him a much drooled over Kindle for his b-day) and the wine (not to mention whine) flowed.

The dogs were confused. Well, Sammy was anyway- Bruiser took the opportunity to go dumpster diving in bags and boxes to find anything stuffed to steal and destroy, and the bigger the better:

The sale itself was fun, especially since we were primarily an online business- I never got to see people playing with the stuff we sold, and that was really nice. We sold a little over half- not bad, considering that a high percentage of the stock was out of season Mardi Gras decorations.

I donated what was left to charity; it was just picked up a few hours ago. Mostly I’m glad to see it go… all those boxes took up as much emotional/mental space as physical, and closure (trite tho it may be) is a very good thing.

But…well. You know.

Anyway.

Next?

I could’ve retouched the first photo to get rid of the ‘possessed by demons’ look that’s so popular these days. I thought you should get the full-on, totally crazed brunt of the ugliness of addiction.

This falls into the good news/bad news category: Pratchett’s started talking! He’s been saying “Hello” with fair regularity, and he’s got a bunch of other words coming down the pipe. I’ve heard this stage called ‘birdie baby babble,’ which is about right- he sort of works on them when he’s alone, saying them over and over to himself, working it all out.

So, imagine my surprise when something new happened this weekend- he started yelling at the dogs…which made me realize how much Iyell at them, because now Pratch is beating me to it. We have a new dog next door, and whenever she starts yapping, Sammy and Bruiser have to join in, even though my dogs have no idea what they’re barking about. And this new dog yaps a lot.

But now, as start as they get cranked up, Pratch yells “S’mantha!”, followed by a bunch of stuff that’s not understandable yet, but will probably evolve into either “knock it off!” or “be quiet, dammit!”

So yeah, little birdies have big ears. Gonna have to start watching that. Again. It’s kind of like having a toddler all over again, and just when I’ve gotten used to the idea that Alison already knows all those words I’d rather she didn’t.

Sammy, however, wasn’t so excited about it.

And Bianca made her thoughts clear on the matter right off. We decided to skip her.

(No animals were harmed or even seriously annoyed by this silliness, which lasted less than 5 minutes, and now they’re safe for at least another year. )

But only one of us had actual body parts removed… followed by the indignity of the doggie cone. He’s either really resilient (Charlie’s interpretation) or too dim to even notice it (my take), but he’s still wrestling toys to the ground and taking flying leaps onto Kassie’s head.

Every time I see the puppy hiding in and around the flowers, I think of Ferdinand the Bull, who just “wanted to sit quietly and smell the flowers.”

:::sigh:::

What a lovely idea. If only Bruiser would sit quietly and smell the flowers instead of running around like a loon, using Kassie’s ears as handles, and doing his level best to destroy every shoe in the house.

Not to mention chasing the cats everywhere. No, this really isn’t a pacifist dog.

Of course, given the look on Ferdinand’s face, one has to wonder exactly what flowers it is he’s smelling…

They were decently large, and budded up. They’re at least twice as big as most mail order exotics. In short, they were really good… except that…you know…they’re not David.

Anyway, this was Hibiscus Metallica’s first bloom, and I was trying to get a shot of it, not realizing I was being so closely watched until I edited the photo.